Twice a Rake (21 page)

They had been back at Number Fourteen for only a few minutes when Sir Jonas, their first guest of the day, arrived. She smiled and nodded and attempted to make conversation with the man—and he was truly a delightful conversationalist, discussing such matters with her as
Frankenstein
, a novel he’d read written by a lady, no less—but honestly, would have preferred him to leave.

He did just that, but only when after visitors arrived. This time, Rebecca came in, escorted by none other than Lord Norcutt, who was overly fervent in offering his felicitations to the new couple. Rebecca’s presence would have been delightful, had it not been marred by the gentleman at her side. Aurora could hardly make such a pronouncement, however, particularly because of the little wager the two ladies had made, and so she was forced to bite her tongue and wish for time to move faster.

After their departure, a veritable parade of fashionable people stopped in to offer their congratulations (or, perhaps more to the point, to see what sort of gossip they could glean during in their brief visits).

By the time their exceedingly inadequately furnished drawing room had finally emptied that afternoon, Aurora had consumed more tea than any human should ever drink within a full day, let alone within the span of a few hours. “I do not believe I wish to ever have another visitor as long as I live,” she complained to Quin. From his position beside her, he nodded in agreement.

But before they could extract themselves from the room, yet another knock sounded at the double doors. Their butler ducked his head inside and announced, “Lord Hyatt to see Lord and Lady Quinton.”

Oh, dear good Lord. Father could not have waited one more day? But no, of course he couldn’t. This was the first time since her birth he’d gone a full day without seeing her. He must be lonely, being bereft of her company.

Quin waved for the butler to show her father in. A moment later, he came into the room, full of smiles and life.

Naturally, as any newly married daughter delighted to see her father would do, Aurora burst into tears.

Father rushed to her side and wrapped her in his arms. “There now. It can’t be so bad as all of this,” he said.

She tried to stop the tears, but they came in a torrential downpour and she couldn’t manage to staunch the flow. When she tried to speak, all that came out was a hiccup.

“What have you done to her?” Father asked, directing his malevolence at Quin.

“What have
I
done to
her
?” Quin bellowed loud enough that surely all their neighbors must have heard. “How soon you forget that your daughter led me on a merry chase yesterday morning, when she ought to have been walking down the aisle to marry me.”

“Just as soon as you forget,” her father said with more menace in his tone than she’d ever heard before—more, in fact, than she ever imagined him capable of, “that none of this would be happening if you had any sense of honor or decency and had refrained from debauching my daughter in the middle of a ballroom.”

“You, sir, ought to remember that your
daughter
is now also my
wife
,” Quin said in a much quieter tone than could possibly prove to be advantageous, “and it is therefore my responsibility and obligation to comfort her when she might need it. Kindly remove your hands from her person.”

Father did just that. He stood, spreading his feet wide and crossing his arms across his chest. “How dare you order me not to comfort my daughter? To leave her in her misery—misery you’ve caused, mind you—when she needs someone she loves and trusts to care for her?”

Oh, blast. This was not how she’d envisioned her first day of married life.

Though, admittedly, Aurora did rather enjoy the thought of two gentlemen fighting over her. Having it be two men, neither of whom could fit into the categories of
Father
or
Husband
, however, would be much preferable to her current predicament.

She leapt to her feet, planting herself directly in the middle of them—just as Quin was advancing upon her father to do God only knew what. “Stop. Right this instant, both of you stop this.”

Quin neglected to slow his advance, so she held out an arm, pushing him back with all her might. “I said
stop
.”

Finally, he listened to her. But he seemed none too happy about the arrangement, glaring so furiously at her father that the viscount ought to have burst into flames. For that matter, Father’s scowl would have easily felled a lesser man than Quin.

More to stall than anything, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Surely they were both capable of seeing reason, weren’t they? And surely they recognized the fact that one of them murdering the other would be far from a reasonable response to—

To what?

Oh, dear good Lord. Her marriage had already become a complicated, convoluted mess, and they’d only been married a day.

“Father,” she began, “Quin has done nothing to cause my tears.” Well, nothing that she was willing to tell her father, at least. Certainly nothing that she ought to mention if she intended to diffuse the tension in the air. “I’m simply overwhelmed by everything. This has all happened so fast.”

“Too fast,” Father grumbled beneath his breath.

She frowned at him before turning to her husband. “Quin, it is your right, as my husband, to comfort me”

“Damn right it is,” Quin interrupted, earning his own frown.

“
However
,” she interrupted with a good deal of force, “Father has always been my one and only comfort in this world, and it is going to take a period of time for both of us to adjust to the new circumstances we find ourselves in.”

Quin’s upper lip twitched—the only sign that he’d heard anything she had to say. She’d have to take that as a positive.

“As such,” Aurora pressed on before her husband had a chance to interrupt again, “I wondered if you might grant me a brief visit with Father—alone.”

Her father’s hand slipped around her own to squeeze it lightly, yet he remained silent. Thank heavens at least
he
understood when to keep his mouth shut. The same could not be said of her husband. Nor, for that matter, could it very often be said of Aurora.

How had she managed to escape learning such a trait?

That was neither here nor there. Aurora watched Quin, waiting for his response. She had to wait a good long while for it, too. He said nothing for many minutes, staring at her father, with only the twitch of his lip to tell her he was still debating his answer. When finally his gaze fell upon her, his eyes held the look of the naughty boy whose hands had been slapped for not sharing his toys, only to have those very toys taken away and given to another child.

He was jealous! Of her father. Over
her
. Oh, dear good Lord. But he inclined his head and left the room without looking back.

Now she’d gone and made a mull of things. But what could be done for it? Nothing at the moment, so she might as well enjoy the visit Quin had just granted her with her father. “Come, sit with me,” she said, pulling on Father’s arm until he plopped down into the seat beside her.

“I should not have done that. I shouldn’t have argued with your husband—accused him of making you cry.”

“Well, let’s not worry about that, shall we? I’m sure there are many far more important things we can discuss.” And likely far more times her husband would make her cry in the future. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to mention that tidbit to Father at the moment, though.

Father looked on her with austere eyes. “At the moment, the most important thing that should be on your mind is finding a way to make your marriage work. I’m sure it won’t be easy. You haven’t known him long enough for that. But, Aurora, you must do everything in your power to learn to love Lord Quinton. It will make all of this much easier.”

Love
. Who was he to speak to her of love within a marriage? She did her best to keep the admonishment from her tone, for that just would not do when speaking to her father. “I shall endeavor to not argue with my husband any more than is absolutely necessary, but I can make no promises about love.” Particularly not since she had learned at least some small part of his reasons for marrying her.
Love
had never been in the equation, and she’d be damned if she tried to change that.

“You must try to love him. If you don’t, you’re dooming yourself to a miserable marriage. A bleak life.” Father raked a hand through his thinning hair on a sigh.

“I hardly think I’m the one dooming myself to anything.” Never mind her lost (and subsequently found) journal and its role in the debacle. “Or have you forgotten who kissed whom on that ballroom floor?”

“That is hardly the point, Aurora, and you know it.”

“Oh, so the point should be that I should have a marriage as
euphoric
as yours was with Mother? Such a delightful thought, spending the remainder of my days in an entirely separate wing of our estate, seeing each other only at meal times—and at those times he sees fit to attempt to impregnate me. Delightful prospect, that.”

Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Aurora wished she could shovel them back in and swallow them, never to be uttered. The pain in Father’s eyes was too palpable, too intense.

“Is that what you’ve thought all this time? That we didn’t love each other?” His voice cracked over the words.

She shrugged sheepishly. “How was I to think anything else? You were always so absent, so despondent. Mother was listless at her best moments—but more often she cried all the time. I remember her tears more than anything.” Mother’s tears and her own. But never Father’s. He hadn’t cried, not even when Mother had died.

“Yes, your mother cried often. Far more often than you knew,” Father said. A single tear formed in his eye and fell down his cheek. Aurora reached up to wipe it, but he brushed her hand away. “Her father had always emphasized the importance of providing a male child, providing a son, and it was all she could think of. I told her time and again that it didn’t matter to me. We didn’t have to have any children at all, as long as we had each other. After all, it wouldn’t matter to me if the title passed to your Uncle George. He’s as deserving as anyone.”

Father walked to the great picture window and stared out. The silence hung heavy in the room between them. “But she insisted we had to keep trying. It was four years of trying before you were born. Four years of failures—more miscarriages than I could count, and a babe born dead. A boy. So when you came along, I was delighted. I thought, perhaps, your mother would be as delighted as I. That she could be satisfied with a daughter and stop putting herself through that torture. For a while, she was. You were our sunshine—like the dawn breaking over the horizon after a long, dark night. Aurora. Goddess of the morning. For the first time, I thought she might manage to be happy. To stay happy.”

He struck the wall beside him and Aurora jumped. Only then did she realize she’d been crying—when a tear fell to her lap from the force of her surprise.

“But she couldn’t keep that up. You weren’t a son.”

“Surely you told her the title could pass to me. Surely she knew she needn’t produce a male heir.”

“Of course I did. But her father had it so ingrained in her mind, that what I wanted and what I told her no longer mattered. So we kept trying, and always with the same result. I became so frustrated with her, for putting herself through that sort of torture—the loss, the grief—that I couldn’t stand to see her any more. She cried all the time. You remember that part. She was so ashamed of herself for being unable to do what she thought was expected of her that she couldn’t face anyone. Only her lady’s maid was allowed to enter her room most days. When she sent for me, I would go. I still loved her. I would have done anything for her if I thought it would make her happy.”

It was almost too much for Aurora to take in. Everything she believed, everything she thought she knew about her parents had been completely, utterly wrong. And if
that
was wrong, then everything she had spent her entire life doing in order to avoid the same fate…“You really loved Mother? You weren’t desolate because you’d married the wrong woman and could never love her?”